The Bed Looks Just Like The Moon
by SilkenBone922
Summary: Blair/Dan- he offers her his company till she makes it to the other end. implied Blair/Nate,Nate/Vanessa
1. Chapter 1

**the bed looks just like the moon**

**gossip girl**, blair/dan, (implied blair/nate, nate/ vanessa), words 1463, pg -_He offers his company till she makes it to the other end._

notes: for girlyevil- my take on your prompt, it's very different from my usual style but I thought I'd give it a whirl

If they didn't already know each other than this would be a perfect story.

A fall afternoon and their bodies collide along the sidewalk, his stack of books joining her Hermes purse on the floor as both of their belongings scatter across the granite.

He apologizes profusely, hand at her elbow as he helps her up. He's rambling of course, sentences don't end and words lose meaning but she isn't listening, just disentangling herself from him to brush down her dress.

It's a pretty dress. Black and sort of floaty, with sleeves that whisper, following the movements of her hands as they slide up and down her small form and he shuts up.

Shuts up and trails off because she's looking right at him and his knees are turning to jelly.

"Blair.

It comes out harsher than he means it to be and he wishes the word would leap back into his mouth but this is Blair Waldorf and no second chances is sort of a given.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, utterly without thinking because _hello_, it's New York and she lives here and now, goes to school here.

(Same place as him, but that's not important-

-they've gotten much better at avoiding each other.)

Her eyes turn up at him, through glistening lashes and she says- "I'm-"

"I think I'm taking the subway."

His heart imitates his tongue, stuttering and stopping. She looks smaller somehow, though she's still got her heels. Her hair's darker, skin still ivory and she looks positively miniscule with her black dress and wet eyes.

He offers his company till she makes it to the other end.

Sunglasses slide up to her nose and she says _no, thank you _and she has places to be with the same old smugness he always expects.

She's six feet tall again as she walks away.

*

It's another two weeks (week and half) before he becomes one of those places.

They start with _lunch_.

Except, you know. Not lunch.

Because all she orders is a salad leaf and a black coffee, hat tilted to the window, lest passerby's (Gossip Girl) spot her with lonely boy.

He sighs, orders a large fries and makes small talk about the weather and their psychology professor's new shoes.

Her eyes flick up from the plate and those lovely red lips form an "oh" that tells him she never really realized she never saw him and his Moleskin in the back seat.

He goes back to his fries and pours ketchup.

She adds pepper and takes a few.

*

He gets a card from Serena the next day.

There's no message. Just a phone number with Blair's name scribbled next to it.

He thinks this is wonderland.

*

There is box at the opera.

There is a box at the opera and she wants to go.

She has a new dress, old pearls and ticket in her pocket so she asks him to go with her.

As a friend.

He says yes. As a friend.

It's their worst idea, yet.

*

He cleans up well.

He cleans up well and he knows it because she allows herself a small smile before taking his arm and leading him up the stairs. She leans into him while they circle the foyer- socializing- and he can feel his blood rush.

She's never been this close to him before, her tiny hands pressing into his side and he thinks if he could lock her to him, he would.

She's shaking hands with a matron when she first stiffens against him. She's asked if this is her beau and he can feel her whole body go rigid against his, elbow pressing hard into his torso.

She's all bones, cold bones and the night's new magic is gone.

She says _no_.

*

He rests his forehead against the cool bathroom mirror and tells himself he's not her boyfriend.

He doesn't care because he's _not_ her beau.

He counts to ten before talking to her next.

Holds his breath and thinks of all the different words in the English language that rhyme with _snob_.

*

Tragedy doesn't strike till the second aria. Intermission is cold, polite and he hates it but it's better than what follows.

Right across from them sit a pair of two very familiar people, closely entwined in the Vanderbilt box. Nate's arm is twisted around Vanessa's face, their faces pressed closed and they're barely aware of their surroundings.

He remembers a time he and Serena were once that intimate and he thinks Blair shares his pang of nostalgia but the look on her face is mixed with regret.

Her body slants away from him and he glances down where her dress dips.

Her spine is straight.

*

They walk sometimes.

She doesn't really like the subway and he hates cars so they walk.

Parks, corridors, Bendels- they walk together.

His arms swing at this sides, slightly awkward and her fingers are knitted together and she hates fidgeting, so he asks if she'd like some coffee.

He holds open the door for her and earns a smile- it's the first real one she's bestowed on him since their disastrous non date two nights ago and he'd been starting to wonder what point there was in maintaining a friendship with her if all it bred was awkward silences.

But her lips curve and her dimples are his weakness so all is forgiven and forgotten by the time they reach the counter.

His coffee is black and hers is sweet- something caramel or chocolate and his eyebrows shoot up because with all her sharp edges, he'd never have guessed she'd have a sweet tooth.

She raises one perfectly plucked eye brow and says it chases the bitterness away. She says it simply- without bite but he thinks of her back that night, so straight and so unbending.

And wonders why he always chooses to forget she's fragile, too.

*

Vanessa calls.

She asks him what he thinks he's doing. What he's doing attending the Marriage of Figaro with Blair Waldorf.

He honestly doesn't have an answer (at least not one he's ready to share yet) so he poses a question instead.

She likes talking about Nate. She likes talking about her work, the war in Iraq and the girl who sits behind her in class.

He can read between the lines (or _hear_, as it were.)

It really is all about Nate.

*

The next time they brave the night together, it's a movie.

Something loud and bad and Blair has a _migraine_ and she could really use a _drink_, so they stop at a bar on the way home.

(Even though he tells her, of course, that what she needs is an asprin and good nights sleep but she's wearing _pink_ and she wants strawberry daiquiris.

He knows better than to argue with her when she's like this.)

*

He's lying on his bed the next morning, watching _Paris When It Sizzles_ and Blair's limb are tangled with his. The volume's low so he can't hear every other word that leaves William Holden's mouth but the still unconscious brunette is murmuring her appreciation into his shirt, her lips moving tantalizingly slow so he figures it's worth it.

Her lashes flick open, brushing against the skin of his neck and he shivers.

She takes in her surroundings, head swiveling slowly till her gaze comes to rest on him and he can sense her wide eyed fear.

She likes neat. Pin striped jackets and such. She likes _lines_- straight firm lines.

Not like this, with his body, his heart so close to melding with hers and all the boundaries between them are blurred and hazy and he can see her draw back before she moves an inch.

She moves up and away from him.

The door slams and the movie goes on.

He wonders if he'll ever see her again.

*

The year scrolls by with paper and ink and there's a girl or two.

He tells himself he couldn't possibly be lonely without her- tells himself this while walking down the street and _yes_, this much reading is normal for the summer and it is her favorite cup of coffee he's drinking.

(His favorite, too. Two weeks after she left, he decided he didn't need anymore bitterness, either)

He bumps into a girl.

Books, pens, purses all fall to the floor but the people don't.

He tosses cup of coffee down to the ground, with the pens and the ribbons and all his copies of Evelyn Waugh and kisses her.

He kisses her like a soldier come home from war- all desperate passion and no finesse.

Her fingers press into the back of his neck.

She kisses him back.


	2. all the umbrellas

**ball the umbrellas in london couldn't hide my love for you**

**gossip girl/b, **blair/dan

notes: for gatheringlight, sequel/companion piece a href=.#cutid1to the bed looks just like the moon/a but could be read on it's own.

blockquoteand it came to me then, that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time/blockquote

Her bags are packed and piled against the door when she steps out of the house.

It's iMilan/i this year (but Paris first) and she hasn't spent a summer in New York since she was four and Daddy took a trip to Rome with his hair dresser.

(iPaolo/i, if memory serves- and with Blair it usually does and she thinks she remembers Daddy's indiscretions with greater clarity than she recalls either Nate's or Chuck's.)

She hasn't iwanted/i to be home for the summer since the year Chuck broke her heart and she reminds herself how much she hates tourists while adjusting her sunhat in the mirror. Slides her fingers over the dressing table and reaches for the lipstick.

She paints them red.

Dan Humphrey, she decides, is a inuisance./i

Always has been really, since that time he held her hand over fries at the lunch she should never have gone to and when he ruined her night at the opera and now-kissing her on a street corner, pressed up against her for all the world to see-

He is most definitely a nuisance.

She wakes up beside him, the next morning. Hair mussed and the traces of yesterdays lipstick still smudged across the angle of his jaw and it isn't till her phone rings that she realizes she's supposed to be in France.

That her father and Roman are waiting for her across the ocean, hoisting a mock placard at Charles de Gaulle airport.

She reaches across the nightstand for her phone and Dan's arm tightens around her.

There are three missed calls from the parental units and she bites her lips, eyes sliding over to his face.

These are not conversations that she looks forward to having.

He's charming in the mornings.

Quieter than usual, because his tongue isn't awake and she's less guarded, less sharp so they share a quick kiss over breakfast. He pulls on a pair of pants from the pile of clothing strewn over the floor and she fishes out a shirt from under her heels and pads out into the kitchen after him.

Her legs are crossed at the table and she reads the newspaper while he fixes her breakfast, not feeling the need to talk for the sake of talking.

The sun peeps in through the windows and she thinks of how it seeps into the black of his hair and frowns at herself for indulging. One night after-

-one night doesn't make them anything, yet.

He serves her pancakes, grinning at the disfigurement but she's still quiet, eyes fixed to the flickering light of her phone. Almost as if she's waiting for it to ring.

Her fingers tighten around the coffee cup, teeth catching her lower lips when it finally buzzes the screen lighting up to Roman's name. Dan's hand reaches across the table to catch hers.

His brow is furrowed, eyes crinkled up in concern.

"Is everything all right?"

She waits a beat. Maybe, too.

"Oh,of course"- her voice is carefully breezy- "It's just-"

-there's a gulp for air and the ithings/i this boy does to her-

"I'm supposed to be in Paris right now."

Her voice goes up in the end like it's a question. A calm, composed question.

"You're going to Paris?" he asks, drawing out the words slowly.

Her hand flicks the air. "I hadn't exactly counted on last night happening."

There's a blush but it isn't hers. He hadn't counted on it either- she'd received quite enough assurances to the contrary of the course of last night.

(most of which included the word iincredulous/i instead of un-fucking-believable.

He's polite. A poet- a ipolite/i poet.)

His lips brush over the curve of her cheek.

"Can I come too?" he breathes into her year and her pessimistic heart swings open it's doors.

She wonders if she'll ever stop expecting tragedy.

She helps him pack.

Struts into his apartment, sometime around noon with her hands on her hips, hair twisted into a bun. She's ready for business and more than a little miffed to find that his meager belongings are already tucked into a suit case.

"Dissapointed?" he asks, perceiving her pout and his lips slide over her nape.

She turns to face him and wonders if half the reason she came was to check if he was still coming with her.

Her body settles into his arms.

Dan Humphrey is not Chuck Bass-

-she wonders how this could have ever been a bad thing.

They don't make it to the chateau.

A week in Paris will suffice, she thinks, and she can tell Dan is bored of being dragged from one boutique to the other as she slips in and out of pretty little dresses with shorter skirts than she'd wear back home, while he waits on her in cafes- trying to explain to the waiter that he'd love some milk in the coffee and trying to read directions and maps to the library.

She realizes that the language difference is only further crippling her socially awkward paramour and suggests a change of scene.

His eyes light up so fast that she throws away the ticket to Milan and all her dreams of Venice. He kisses her softly, smiling into her mouth and she thinks she could get used to this iselfless/i thing.

(But only in great moderation and ihe/i must never be privy to her motives.

They take the train to London.

He drapes an arm around her shoulder like a question, whispering "Is this ok?"

He'll cross an ocean with her and fuck her in the alcove of the Palais Garnier without scruples but an arm around her shoulder needs confirmation.

She reaches up to touch his fingers, pull them closer to her sweater and pulls her knees up to her chest and lets her head roll on to his shoulder.

Her hands are still folded in her lap.

He loves it.

They stroll along Covent Garden and skip up the stairs to the National Portrait gallery and his eyes are wide with excitement. He's got his hand on the small of her back, even though she's leading him and he won't shut up.

He talks about Austen and Dickens and tells her things about the city that she already knows, talking rapidly and with very little breath. The only way she can get him to stop is to press her lips to his and take away what breath he has left.

It proves to be rather effective.

So, he'd balked a little when she proposed that they stay at the Ritz.

His mouth turned down at the corners and she was scared he'd leave.

It's but a moment of reaches out to touch her shoulder and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

He doesn't kiss her this time. Just slides a finger across her cheek for the unshed tears and leans his forehead against hers.

Harold comes up to London.

He and Roman have an apartment. One for cocktail parties and dinners and they throw one in Blair's honour.

It's a dainty affair, all light yellow dresses and satin ties with pretty little glasses lined up along the ebony bar and people swish around drinks like the film is rolling.

Dan wears grey, black tie matching her napkin of a dress and they spill darkness into the airy little room. Harold raises his glass in a silent toast when he spots her, like an ink stain on the white fabric of the door and for once, she doesn't want to play along.

They slip through the crowds- she says "This is Dan Humphrey."

And nothing more.

The back of his hand brushes against hers, drawing slowly back. She turns her palm towards him and stops his wrist. Their fingers are linked till the sherry runs dry and the little London street pulls black cabs to the door.

They're having dinner at West End, a week later, when she asks him if he still loves Serena.

Dan's wrist shudders but he steadies his drink with admirable strength of mind.

"Yes" he says with some difficulty, "the way you still love Nate. And Chuck."

She shudders delicately and knows he's said the wrong thing and she's going to run- he can feel it in his bones.

"I'm not in love with her." He reaches for her.

He catches one glimpse of her that says this isn't enough- she leans across the table top and kisses him, hard, before walking away.

Her heels still clack against the sidewalk as he stands there calling her name.

The rain begins to pour.

The hotel room is empty when he reaches there, soaked as a rat.

Her dresses are still in the closet but there is a no sleeping mask tucked under the night lamp and no little vial of chanel no 5 against the bathroom the sink.

He slams his hand against the mirror and every cut looks like her ruby red lips smiling up at him.

He sinks to the cold tiled floor.

It takes him ten days and ten nights to find her.

He scours the city as best he can, combing through Harrods and spending hours skulking outside Harold's place hoping to see her bright coat bob down the stairs.

He calls Serena on the ninth night and tells her he doesn't love her and he can't find Blair and what in hell is he supposed to do?

"You shouldn't need to ask me this."

Her voice sounds deep, like there are worlds not oceans separating them.

He picks up an umbrella and braves the night for one more vain attempt to find her.

It's Selfridges.

He finds her at Selfridges, trying on a wedding dress that's two sizes too big for her, lace hanging loose around her tiny waist and she back the veil when she sees him.

"Humphrey."

He wants it to be some big movie moment. Snatching her up and kissing her and saying "don't ever do that to me again."

He offers her his hand instead.

They sit on the settee of the dressing room. And they talk.

"I don't want to go back to New York."

His finger trails up her spine.

"You love New York. You love Tiffanys."

Her chin crumples. "This has nothing to do with Tiffany's."

He pulls up her face to meet his.

"We can't do this in New York," she tells him.

"We don't have to do. We don't have to anything, if you don't want to."

She doesn't respond. He takes his hands off of her and moves to his own corner of the seat, palms on his knees.

He's waiting for her. She doesn't think anyone's ever done that before.

She reaches for his coat and tugs it over her shoulders.

She takes off the wedding dress and she takes him home.

They try kissing in the rain.

It's not a very wise attempt. The cobblestones of Trafalgar Square have been washed wet and she slips a little, when she moves to meet him. His arms tighten and the umbrella finds the floor and he holds her a little closer than he should. She wonders why all his grand romantic gestures end up soiling her belongings and drags her mouth away from his to scold him.

She still doesn't want to go back to New York and he still needs to finish school.

The summer is long.

She's fairly certain she'll manage to keep him.


End file.
